Tuesday Slice: The holidays are different...and that's okay

We're dining out for Thanksgiving this year.  Seems to be an every-other-year event.  It's nice to enjoy the food and the company, but I do miss the leftovers.  We bought pared-down versions of our usual Thanksgiving meal to cook next weekend, just to have some turkey, stuffing, and cranberry jelly in the fridge.

Christmas will be different, too.  Our daughter and new-ish son-in-law will be joining us three days after Santa's usual visit.  You don't know how steeped in traditions your holiday is until you try to negotiate them on an altered timetable.  Does Santa still visit on the 25th?  Does Santa visit at all?  Do we open some of our gifts on the 25th, or all of them later, together?  Will the kids want to bake Jesus' birthday cake together--we all know the 25th really isn't his birthday, anyway--or will the youngest fly solo with that tradition again, so Santa has a piece on his usual night?  

We're letting our grown-up children answer most of those questions.  Our daughter wants her Japanese husband to experience the "Christmas crazy" in our house, as she's come to describe it from afar.  I don't know if I can just let the 25th go by without some of that Christmas magic happening; I'd rather celebrate twice.  Their father and I haven't talked about that yet.

Yes, the holidays will be different this year.  But the best parts remain the same--family, friends, and good food.  We are blessed, and grateful, and ready to celebrate together, no matter the location or the date on the calendar.

Tuesday Slice: The ball in the box

Lauren Herschel's Tweet showed up in my social media.

My button has been pushed often this week.

The triggers--

       a friend lost a father

       a friend remembering her mother

       grandparents proudly sharing photos

       the upcoming holidays

       my shopping genes, and

       the resulting clutter

No tears were shed.  My thoughts were selfish, really--

       empathetic thoughts (I know what it's like to lose a parent)

       I've been a motherless daughter for twenty-three years

       my mom only got to grandparent for three years (does the last one even count?)

       my mom would know how to handle the holidays this year

       my mom would share in my shopping "victories"

       my mom would help me decide what to keep and what to release

       my mom would

       my mom

       mom

I went to sleep last night 

with that three-letter word 

full of love and loss 

lingering on my lips.       

Tuesday Slice: Double whammy

We have a delayed start this morning due to icy road conditions.

And there's a full moon.

A double whammy for us teacher types.  Many students were already off-kilter yesterday as the front blew in at noon.  We dropped twenty degrees in an hour.  By quitting time, the raindrops played a staccato wind-driven beat on my windshield, a backdrop for my surprise of forty-one degrees on the dashboard readout.  I knew when the phone rang at 10pm with an 877 prefix that the district was robo-calling.  I left my bed with a whoop of happiness to inform my husband of my delayed start.

Cold weather energizes me.  I love hunkering down with a warm drink in hand and getting productive.  It was the first evening in ages that I crossed nearly everything off my to-do list.

This morning, I slept in an extra forty-five minutes.  I'll drink an extra cup of coffee as I check the late-start schedule, and answer emails about missed library visits.  I'll get a decent workout, without the excuse of too little time.  And then I'll steel myself for classes who have had indoor recess, and students who don't handle changes in the routine well, especially under a full moon.  

Tuesday Slice: They miss the library

Have you seen this meme floating around the Internet?  It's from one of our local restaurants.

As an elementary school librarian, I don't have to chase the high.  It chases me down twice a year.

I just wrapped up running my thirteenth book fair.

I say "wrapped up", because the carts and boxes are packed and ready for pick up, taking up a sizable chunk of real estate on the reading side of the library.  They don't get picked up until Thursday.  It will probably take another week for me to finish the financial forms, get a check disbursed, and truly wrap up the fair.

I am grateful for the outpouring of support from the volunteers (and an artsy assistant) who turned the library into a bookstore wonderland this week.

I am grateful to my administrators for supporting our efforts, to my colleagues for allowing students to shop in the middle of the day, to parents braving before school "rush hour", standing in line at our three registers to buy the books their children wished for.  The funds raised from the fair will help pay for author visits and books for our students.

What am I most grateful for?

My favorite question this week:

"Ms Margocs, when do we get to come back to the library to check out books?"